


Tiger Balm

by TrishaCollins



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Being Shiro's roommate was suffering, Do not throw your career away over a crush Takashi, Garrison fluff, Gen, I want someone to talk to him, Keith was a dork about Shiro from the start, Matt had a lot of doubts about keith at first, Post-Season/Series 04, Suddenly cadet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 18:19:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12776712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishaCollins/pseuds/TrishaCollins
Summary: Matt had a lot of doubts about Keith at first, he got over them. Making up your mind and then not following through is emotionally devastating





	Tiger Balm

Shiro let out a guttural moan as he leaned his weight into the shoulder.

Who knew the guy was a screamer? Well, except for their neighbors whom he had on good authority thought that all the noises coming through the walls meant they were having sloppy sex and not that Shiro couldn’t pace himself on a good day.

During a bad week he had more lumps in his back than the garrison had cadets. He felt like he could start naming them. That particular one was surely caused by the pretty blond with more legs than brains. The one that insisted that there was sentient moss on mars and thought she was going to be the Captain of a ship and have sex with hot aliens.

At least a few were for that mostly brunette who was great in her sciences but got altitude sickness even in sims. Probably a few were his own making.

“urhgha.” Shiro groaned, arching into his hands. “Nrb.” 

Which he took to mean “push more there Matt, you amazing specimen of a human being, how did I get so lucky to have you.” And obligingly provided more pressure.

“What are you doing to him?” a breathless voice asked from their third floor window.

He glanced up – really only to confirm the roof top demon was there – and found Keith doing an admirable impression of a seizure, one hand curled to a claw by his side, the other holding the window frame, lip twitching like he wanted to curl it back

It wasn’t the snarl he wanted it to be, clearly. “Massage!” He announced brightly, as though he had been expecting Keith to drop in like that. “I can’t get him to go anywhere for one. Says its a waste of time.” He rolled his eyes. “So it’s me and a vat of tiger balm or nothing.”

Keith stayed in the window, eyeballing him warily. “Tiger Balm?”

“Shiro swears it heals everything.” He offered with a shrug, holding up one greasy hand. “Want some?”

Keith almost recoiled back out the window, but he caught himself at the last second. “No-I….”

It was the closest thing to a conversation he’d managed to have with the kid. 

He shrugged his shoulder, applying more pressure down the Garrison’s star pilot’s poor, abused spine. 

Keith drifted closer, watching the process warily. 

Keith watched everything warily, really, but anything that involved Shiro seemed to get an extra layer of scrutiny. 

“How do you….?” Keith said, finally, after studying the process for long enough.

“Oh you can feel the knots. With him you almost need a hammer to break them up.”

Keith bristled at that, eying him through narrowed eyelids as though determining if he might not be about to use a hammer on Shiro. 

He snorted. “Come here. I’ll show you.” 

Probably shouldn’t be encouraging Keith to more intimate touch, he was still jailbait and a career ruinier, but Shiro had minded his manners and showed restraint so far. It couldn’t really hurt. 

Keith reached out a hand, resting it on Shiro’s back, and getting some variant of the Takashi “More, harder, now.” Groaning.

There were times he felt like Keith should have the ears of a cat, as well as the mannerism of one, because the only way the full face twitch made sense was if he had fuzzy little ears to press back against his skull.

He didn’t, but the mental image amused the hell out of him. 

He reached out with a hand, and got a wrinkled nose but no resistance as he guided Keith’s hands to one of the knobbier parts of Shiro’s back. He even stayed closed enough to absorb a full lesson.

Apparently he was willing to tolerate physical contact if it involved helping Shiro, who was at least vocal and appreciative of the efforts of two people bent over his back. 

***

He spread a liberal handful of the gunk on his hand, working it into his leg. He might have just been flying around, but battles made everything in him knot up.

There was a small noise from the doorway, and he looked up.

Keith was watching him, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Tiger balm?”

He laughed, as tired as he was. “No. Closest local equivalent though. Want some?” He held out his smelly fingers. “I feel like my entire body is wound too tight.”

Keith looked for a moment like he might refuse the offer, honestly he was expecting him to refuse. They had been getting closer before the mission, as Keith slowly allowed that maybe he wasn’t going to light Shiro on fire and that he could cook. But then they had left, and everything had gone terribly wrong, and the boy dressed in black wasn’t Shiro’s shadow anymore.

He wasn’t even a boy anymore. 

That made him sad, for some unfathomable reason, a deep anxious sadness that placed the loss of whatever flavor of childhood Keith might have had because of them that had ended without them there to celebrate it. 

He enjoyed Keith’s birthday purely because Keith never seemed to expect anything from them, and catching him by surprise in a good way always seemed all the more fleeting. 

He couldn’t imagine the guy looming at him – the guy who had almost killed himself earlier that day – with a silly hat on his head and Shiro draped over his shoulder patiently guiding him through blowing out the candle. 

He didn’t know if Keith saw that in his face, or if some internal war had been fought and turned in his favor, but Keith nodded a little and stepped forward.

“Alright, cat burglar, how did I get this kitty cosplay off?” He asked, grinning. 

Keith twitched a bit, but showed him the connectors and let him peal it down off his shoulders, settling on the floor by his feet. 

His back was covered in bruises and old scars, with a few new marks for flavor. 

He didn’t let him react to them. They all had more scars, now, he was sure Shiro was a mess of them.

Keith made a little sound at the first brush of the cream, but settled down after that. He was tense, but he was trying to relax. 

He was careful to avoid the worst of the bruises, or just caress them lightly, but he had a feeling Keith wouldn’t have noticed at all. 

“You ok?” He asked, finally, at a loss for any other way to approach what had almost happened earlier. Yell, maybe? Scream at him that he was an idiot, and he was never to do that again, and oh GOD this kid would be the death of him in some fashion. 

“….Yeah.” Keith whispered, and then proved himself a liar when he pulled one of his knees up and wrapped his arm around it. 

Smooth. 

“Keith…” He blew out a breath, wishing for Shiro, who always seemed to know how to handle Keith’s snarls and mental tangles. 

But Shiro was gone, and whatever had replaced him was a funhouse mirror version of a very cherished friend. 

“I know.” Keith muttered. “I already got yelled at.”

He leaned forward, resting his forehead against Keith’s shoulder, smelly gunk and all. “That’s not it. Keith…you.” Damn. He was terrible with words when it mattered. What would he say if this was Pidge?

No, bad idea, Pidge would (hopefully) never try something like this. Never feel so disposable that she would. 

There would probably be more snot and tears with Pidge, anyway. He had always been a messy crier when people he loved were in danger. 

“Keith..” He repeated, running his hands through the wild mess of Keith’s hair. The kitty suit was not doing him any favors. “Keith, there’s only one you.”

Keith was quiet under him.

“The Blade, Voltron, the war. Zarkon. That stuff is all pretty impressive. It’s pretty big. Massive, even, we’re all just pieces in it.” He swallowed back against the lump in his throat. “But there’s only one you. There’s only one other person who helped me convince Shiro he was going crazy in order to get him to eat. Remember that time you got completely drunk and chased after the laser scope on the rifle and nearly got yourself killed? I do. I remember screaming at you and Shiro screaming with us.”

“You threatened to wrap me in a blanket and never let me out of the house.” Keith whispered.

“I did.”

“I didn’t even live there.” Keith pointed out.

“You did, it just wasn’t official, because you were a kid and everyone was looking the other way about it.” He ran his hands down Keith’s shoulders, rubbing on either side of his spine, needing the contact. “You are my family.” He breathed it out, careful with it, knowing how easily Keith could slide away from him. “You are. Just like Pidge. I’d be devastated if something happened to you, Keith. Nothing is worth throwing your life away.”

“I didn’t see any other way.” 

He lightly smacked Keith’s shoulder. “Then learn to look better. Lotor wasn’t the only thing that could get through that, Keith. He wasn’t. I know it. I have a pretty big brain, we would have figured it out.” 

“Pidge could have died.” Keith whispered. 

“Pidge was still fighting.” He told Keith, sliding down to sit on the floor behind him and wrapping his arms tight around Keith’s torso. “Pidge is smart too, I trust her.” 

“You trust me?” There was an attempt at a jab, or a joke.

“Only when other people’s lives are on the line. You critically undervalue yourself.” He rubbed Keith’s shoulders. “Just…promise me. Next time? Wait until I’ve run the numbers. Ok? I won’t stop you if it’s what needs to happen, but I don’t want you to throw your life away for something that might not even work. Promise?”

Keith was quiet for a bit, almost too long, leaning into his body like a touch hungry child. “Ok.”

He hugged him tightly and resumed rubbing his back until the knots went away. By which time, Keith was asleep, curled around his leg. 

The big Galra that was in charge of him came by briefly, gave him a little nod, and left again.


End file.
